Unseasonable fog blog

If this afternoon I'd just returned from some inter-galatic mission having being months adrift in time and space, my first thought on opening the door of my space craft would be 'Hmm, November'.

I am seriously minded of those dreary afternoons wasted on school hockey pitches; two teams tussling at the far end of a sodden field, lumpen grey shapes groping through a grey blanket of fog, woolly and wet. And me, leaning against the goal post (I was a goal keeper) blowing on my freezing fingers and praying, praying, praying fervently that this interminable afternoon would come to an end. See how this teenage experience haunts my adult life.

But it is nearly April for Heaven's sake. It has been like this for four days now - chill cold air trapped under low grey clouds. This is not the way it should be.

I am going to take comfort in a glass of wine in front of a log fire. Perhaps the weather gods will smile on us tomorrow.

Tate and Lever

It wasn't fear exactly but definitely deep disquiet that I felt on standing in front of Ron Mueck's 'Ghost' yesterday. This hyper-real wax girl, perfectly scaled and formed but a soaring 7 feet high, seemed to inhabit her own anxious world that threatened to intrude into mine. What was so disturbing about this figure? She was so real in shape and texture that one almost expected to feel living breathing flesh - the hairs on her arms - because she had spookily hairy arms - made goosebumps rise. I felt I would not have wanted to have been in the Gallery alone lest she woke from whatever unfathomable adolescent torment to lash out irrationally. And yet I didn't fear violence - more an encounter with something so alien. How would I have reacted to a real 7 foot adolescent? I'm sure they exist. It is a possibility.

The Albert Dock - looking a little like off-season Venice

We were in Liverpool, in the Tate Gallery on the Albert Dock. What an earnestly arty place it is - I don't think I've ever 'enjoyed' a visit there. It's so like hard work and after such a schlep up from the shires did Chirbury and Marton Art Club want 'challenging' and full-on 'confrontational'? The short answer is 'no' - on the whole they like things they can recognise and which might look 'nice' over the mantle shelf. A cat, a landscape or some flowers - or something by that nice Mr Lowry. Perhaps it was as well that the Chapman Brothers show had finished......

Alan and I, non- members, tagged along for the ride. Alan wanted to see the Lutyen's model of the Cathedral that never was' at the Walker Art Gallery. And me, well I quite like a coach ride and do feel that a little challenge and a little confrontation is a good thing from time to time.

If the Tate with its 'contemporary' collection was hard for a coachload of countryfolk to get to grips with, everyone enjoyed the Lady Lever Art Gallery which was founded by soap magnate William Hesketh, the first Lord Leverhulme, in memory of his wife in 1922. It houses a fine collection of 18th and 19th century paintings, sculpture and decorative arts and furniture. There is the most exquisite embroidery. There were old friends in the form of familiar Pre-Raphaelites and, to the delight of our group, the paintings which were the basis of the original Sunlight soap ads.

The Gallery is in Port Sunlight, the garden village created by the philanthropic Lord Lever to house his workers. He was appalled by the squalid slum conditions in which most of his workers lived and resolved to house them in decent, pleasant conditions and at reasonable rents and provide them with schools libraries and public buildings in order that they could improve themselves - in return, they were to prove themselves worthy of all this by following a life of sobriety, thrift and the desire for self-improvement. It was within his interests to do so; he reasoned as did other social reformers of the age that a healthy and temperate workforce would be a more industrious one which would increase profitability for factory owners such as himself.

Unfortunately Lord Lever's philanthropic principles did not extend to his African workers - on whom he depended for his raw materials (palm oil from the Belgian Congo - and in Tate's case, sugar from plantations in the West Indies). They worked under conditions known as travail force - forced labour. Lever's vast fortune - estates, collections, bequests - were amassed on the back of practises of which we should be and are, less than proud.

......thoughts of which are easily forgotten as one stands in front of a fine piece of porcelain, marquetry lion or waxen 'Ghost'.

Think about it.

Ain't no stopping it now....

Right at this very moment there's a curlew up on the hill beyond us - making that whooping whirring cry that is the sound of this landscape in early spring. A weak sun has broken through the clouds and infused the milky haze that bathes Long Mountain with a pearly light. There's a bit of a thin wind to take the edge off things but lambs are lying in the sunshine nonetheless - just chillin'. Trees which days ago seemed dark and skeletal now have a dense aurora as leaf and flower bud swell. And birds; twittering and flitting everywhere. The creeping beast that is the season's irresistible life force is poised and ready to pounce.

I think for a while about the hills while driving home along the spine of Long Mountain (my very favourite journey in The Whole Wide World). Those hills to the east - Pontesbury and Pontesford, the Stiperstones, Corndon, Bromlow Callow and Stapely Common, the Long Mynd behind: how unusually blue they appeared a couple of days ago - I'm seeing Housman's 'blue remembered hills' - although strictly speaking they're a bit south of here.

Inevitably these lines from 'A Shropshire Lad' come to mind:

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

And then, even as I whisper those words - eyes wide, mouth half open - I'm off on an 'away day'. A helter-skelter-brain-storm of poetry and prose; of half forgotten lines ('loveliestoftreesthecherrynow di da di di da etc') and music - Vaughan Williams and Elgar and the young George Butterworth (who set 'A Shropshire Lad' to music), The Song of Songs: 'For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away..... and Thomas Hardy and hymns and birdsong, daffodils, light and thunder - even gloomy old RS Thomas - all come crowding round. Such a glorious muddle. There are frogs and spawn - and buzzards soar hopefully and in anticipation over fields of new born lambs (et in arcadia ego) and mew into the large sky.

This is kaleidoscopic thinking and I'm having a lovely time - there are larks ascending:

Skylark

Suddenly above the fields you’re pouring
Pure joy in a shower of bubbles,
Lacing the spring with the blue thread of summer.
You’re the warmth of the sun in a song.

You’re the light spun to a fine filament;
Sun on a spider-thread –
That delicate.

You’re the lift and balance the soul feels,
The terrible, tremulous, uncertain thrill of it –
You’re all the music the heart needs,
Full of its sudden fall, silent fields."

Katrina Porteous
From: The Lost Music, Bloodaxe Books, 1996

......I want to meet the green man. I want to find a flint arrowhead, press seeds into the warming soil, feel heat and light upon my wintered cheek - feel part of this new awakening season and stay connected with the old. These are exhilarating days. Spring's magic must be working - I'm sure it's not just some chemical imbalance in my brain.

Whose breasts are these anyway?

Well I thought they were mine, attached as they are to the front of me. We're an item, we have a history. We hang out together. I look round them to see my feet and these days I buy ever more substantial bits of silk and lace to counteract gravity's inevitable pull and tug. But hey, these pups are mine.

I want to keep it that way and thus do all the 'breast aware' things one's meant to do. But when I was invited the other day by 'Bron Browf Cymru' to be screened at their mobile screening unit (in the car park by Somerfield in Welshpool) - I did think 'Hang on - I've done all this fairly recently in Shropshire - in England.'
So I called the number on the 'invitation' and mentioned this to the surly dragon who'd got the job of snarling down the phone and put my case - I'm attached to an English medical practice, I've been screened within the last 2 years etc etc etc... But oh no, these breasts are now Welsh breasts - they are destined to be a Welsh statistic and a Welsh target met and they will be screened in the car park by Somerfields in Welshpool, in Wales. I meekly agree to keep what is no longer an invitation but an appointment. I suspect secretly that in the worst case scenario me and my 'pups' will receive treatment in England.

Does one authority not talk to another? Is this not unnecessary duplication - of time and resources ?

Please don't misunderstand me - we are so fortunate that this screening is available and 'free' (in as much as anything is 'free') and would urge everyone to undertake it. It's a lifesaver. And of course I will go but wonder if in twelve months time I'll will be 'invited' by my English doctors for what will then be their routine screening.

'Where d'ya get that nose? Did ya pick it yourself?'

Well, I promised the putti a new nose and yesterday set about making it. The slide show shows the process - which will interest the technically minded perhaps. I set to with Plasticine for a mould, PVA adhesive let down with water to bond the old and new surfaces, Plaster of Paris to fill the mould and some little rasps to file away with. I also found I needed a load of patience - it was one of those jobs where you find your tongue sticking out with the effort of concentrating. Skill, practise and experience would have been handy too but we can all muddle along.....

His face is restored. It's OK. I have a new-found admiration for sculptors, especially those carving in marble, stone and wood. What vision, what skill to take a solid block and reveal the inner form. Once those chips of marble have been chiseled away they can't be replaced - building a form up in clay must be an easier process. (Indeed this little putti would have originally been created like that and then cast in bronze.)

I do quite fancy sculpting something.....saw a life-size sheep the other day 'crafted' from plastic carrier bags and it did (fleetingly) go through my mind that there was a huge and untapped resource right here in my own kitchen.....fortunately the moment passed and I went shopping instead.

I shall be sticking to 'broken legs' for Young Farmers for the time being.

But remember: Verrochio. Respec' innit.

This morning.....

.......and this afternoon.

A Happy Mother's Day

Just as I'm thinking that the only things I've got to look forward to this evening are a roast chicken dinner and the bletherings of assorted Times columists in the Sunday papers.....the door opens and in walk - unannounced - my two handsome sons from the north. A truly good suprise for Mother's Day. They come equipped with Chinese Duck and Char Su pork - an unusual but very welcome gift from my perspective. (I do miss the delights of Manchester's Chinatown.) We dive into the tasty morsels and share the roast chicken dinner. And that's the way it should be.

And winging in via cyber space comes a very special card from the Eyechild:

Thanks all. xxx

We've just got back from a trip 'oop north - to the hinterland of industrial Lancashire where town begrudgingly makes way for countryside. We left Shropshire's soft rolling hills and lush valleys, where Hawthorn is already unfolding delicate new leaves, and entered a harder terrain of rugged rising moorland and rain blackened stone. The roaring-ugly M6 motorway took us to Bolton, Blackrod, Chorley, Limbrick and the intriguingly named Anglezark; places where the landscape has a stark brutality in this leafless period - especially as seen today under leaden skies and through icy rain that pricked our skin like needles.

We had a lovely evening with friends - a sort of belated Christmas get-together - snug before the fire, well fed and wined. All gossiped out. Thanks J & B for your wonderful hospitality.

The fierce wind which crashed against the house all night, rattling the sash windows followed us home and now carries flurries of snow across Badnage Wood. Nearly a white-out. There is not a sheep in sight. They've tucked themselves down into the dingle and out of the wind. Alan has lit the woodburner and we are snug and warm indoors, again.

Tears before bedtime......

It's all going tremendously well. We're having a wonderful time. Two days of seductive sunshine have brought out the inner Mediterranean in us all; we drink rapidly cooling coffee outdoors, seated on cold metal chairs. (Because we can, damn it!) Daffodils stand like sentries in village and town, magnolia and camellia are fool enough to bloom. The days are longer and brighter, our hearts are lifted.

Here at the end of the Long Mountain peach and nectarine break bud - creased papery petals unfold. They are comehithersugar-pinkdelicious. We're about to plant a row or two of peas, cast a clout.....

....but what is this? The weather forecast? Snow? And frost as well?

Hah. Ah well.

Rural Crafts No. 2 - Hedging

Someone's bought a derelict cottage and a parcel of land. They're going to live the dream. Before building work starts, while the architect and planning officer negotiate the scope and scale of the extension it's time to re-establish some boundaries. And where they can they'll lay the hedges - a craft that's largely died out as farmers these days prefer to tame their boundaries astride a monster machine, filling the moribund winter months with the roar and crackle of a brush cutter rather than the slash of a bill'ook.

This 200m stretch is a triumph of hope over experience. The saplings in the long neglected hedge line have been slashed, bent and woven into submission. Give it 12 months and it'll thicken up. Note how the brushwood side is to the field - to deter any beast with an ambition to escape.

There is, believe it or not, a National Hedge Laying Society - and they really are trying to stop things getting out more.....

The poesy of spam and other stories.

Spam - it's the detritus of cyber-life - it's the unbidden litter that infiltrates our private spaces, it's the gobs of gum that adhere, it's the cig. butts flicked aside that irritate the non-smoker's eye long after the smoke has drifted away. It's a fact of cyber life. Get over it. Deal with it. Delete it.

Fortunately my spam filter does a reasonable job - correspondence and such goes one way and rubbish the other (a bit like getting on a plane: turn left = comfort zone, turn right = the 8th circle of hell.) Every once in a while I scan through the spam folder before pressing 'empty' just in case something's slipped through the wire. And vice versa - occasionally some ostensibly innocent mail drops into the inbox with some resistible offer. ''Di$cOunt Meds Shipping world-wide' - nope, 'Penis enlargement' - err no. 'Cheap Meds - beat these prices', 'adult pay per view', 'NEed software', no, no, no, not for me. Have I got sucker stamped on my forehead? Don't answer that.

Then there are those mails whose very phrases are so poetic and beguiling that one might almost forget they mask some scam or other. I read 'add candlestick to sugar' or 'in it unicorn' and I am reminded of Edward Lear, nonsense poet extraordinaire, and want to read on. 'Be purveyor in Madhouse' was followed by the cryptic message: 'Somebody Knows Something.' Indeed.

And then there are those heart-rending letters from some bereaved unfortunate, frequently in Nigeria, wanting your help (but mostly your bank details) to unlock the fortune that is awaiting them in some account or other. For your help, paying a few fees and such, a share of that bounty will be yours........ They are always a good read; usually a plane/car crash or civil war, untold millions and maybe a terminal illness too. I do find it hard to believe that there are people out there gullible enough to fall for this ruse. It's known as Advance fee fraud or 419 Fraud (419 relating to the section of the Nigerian penal code that prohibits such activities).

'Gilbert' took the fraudsters on: 'Having received a number of advance fee fraud emails, I decided to do something in retaliation. It’s a small gesture, but I decided to try and waste the time of these scammers as much as possible: to give them less time to defraud other people. I decided to scam the scammers: to string them along with bogus stories just as they string along others. I decided to try to get them to waste their time attempting to access money I said I’d transferred to them, attempting to contact me, or attempting to meet me in pre-arranged locations. And as you will read, it’s worked.'

In these scambusts, a variety of different personas (all called “Gilbert Murray”) string along a number of advance fee fraudsters with increasingly ridiculous and unbelievable stories, attempting to lead them on and embarrass them as much as possible. This website presents the email dialogues that Gilbert has carried out with the fraudsters. It's a very amusing read. Wish I'd thought of it.

So - delete it or deal with it.

The horrible-ness of hens.

This is the hen hospital. Gross isn't it? In common with the majority of other hospitals the length and breadth of the land it is not a thing of beauty; it is not at one with its surroundings; it is of shoddy construction.* And - as if a humble and utilitarian timber frame is not sufficient - someone has had a bad and unnecessary attack of 'cuteness' - the exterior panels are illustrated with pictures of bunnies tucked up in bed. In bilious yellow. And green. Urgh. I also have grave doubts about Cleanliness.

Anyway it has served its purpose - an injured hen has spent a couple of weeks 'cooped up' in there, recuperating. We'll gloss over the 'why' but all's well that ends well and she's back on home ground now in The Henhouse on Wheels. (Only suffering moderate bullying - or hen pecking as it's known in poultry circles - as she re-establishes herself in the natural order of things.) I parked the hen hospital out of sight behind the greenhouse.

The next time I carry out a check another bird is definitely on the receiving end of some nasty treatment. The convalescent is cowering on a perch, another is traumatised in a corner and the other two have suspiciously bloody beaks. They are systematically pecking bits out of the bird on the ground. This is truly gross. She has a flayed patch two or three centimetres in diameter on her rump which I suspect started out as a bit of feather that looked like a grub but is now is a nasty wound.

I catch her and remove her from her cannibalistic sisters. The horrid hen hospital re emerges and the next patient is installed.

*A noteworthy exception to this rule of incongruity is the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick but it has been there since the 14th century and doesn't have to accommodate either the general public or horrible hens.

Quick frog blog.........

Frogs have appeared as if from nowhere, made themselves at home in the pond and spawned. Is anyone unfortunate enough to remember 'school dinners' in the olden days when a bowl of tapioca pudding was a regular on the menu? (Children today - they don't know they're born!) A bowl of tapioca pudding looked just like this:


Wallpaper paste with dots in it, garnished with pond weed? Yum. Not.

I digress......turn up the volume for this little picture show:

The putti's new nose. Part 1

Once upon a time when we were young and the world was fresh and green - in about 1976 - we had a cast of the head of a 'putti', that of the 'Winged Boy with a Dolphin' sculpted by Renaissance artist Verrochio. The small statue is now in Florence, in the Palazzo Vecchio, but originally stood in the garden of the Medicis' villa in Careggi.

How we came by this cast I can't remember. No doubt Alan had picked it up along the way; a discarded remnant of some Grand Tourist's travels, or perhaps a refugee from some art school plaster room when drawing from 'classical' casts fell from fashion and such castings became cast-offs. The Winged Boy's head had found a home with us and regularly if not frequently, holding his baby-weight plaster head in the palm of my hand, I would dust his sweet soft face. Such cherubic cheeks. A snouty little nose. In those days no one said 'bless'.

.......We also had our own small putti who, lacking wings, was discovering legs and the variety of objets now within reach of his little fingers. All was a voyage of discovery. Such delight to be found in such ordinary things - a crumb from the carpet, a cat's tail, a loudspeaker, a funny sort of head thing.......which after it had been under the heavy orange thing (which might have been a ball) was never to be quite the same again. The heavy orange thing - a very solid piece of ceramic fruit - slipped from the little star-fish fingers and in disastrous short seconds effected a very efficient nose-job. The Boy with a Dolphin's nose had gone. Cue for some shouting. Probably some wailing.....

We've all moved on since then of course. The Boy on a Dolphin has come with us, nose-less, through a few house moves; sometimes wrapped in tissue, other times in the newspaper of the day. We've untucked him and fondly announced his soubriquet 'Ah, Verrochio's Boy with a Dolphin', before putting him back in a box. He is after all an old friend.



This last move, all boxes were unpacked and the curators of the family treasure trove assumed an unaccustomed ruthlessness; 30 years worth of bric a brac was sorted and sifted. It was In. Or it was Out. And yes! To the sound of faint applause our "Boy with a Dolphin' made it out of the box and onto a shelf in the dog/laundry/mud room.

I catch those blank plaster eyes as I go about the day's mundane tasks. I think: how sweet you were........I remember I made a broken leg for a Young Farmer. I remember that we have kilos of casting plaster. I think Hey! This is the stuff of which plaster casts are made! I catch the dull eye of my 'putti' and I mutter: 'I'm going to make you a nose....'

In Just Spring?

It's been such a beautiful day today that I wondered how to describe it - especially when somebody said 'Well it is spring isn't it?'

Is it? Here I was plodding along thinking 'End of winter - spring's around the corner, not quite yet'.

Ok, we're nearly there: the lambs just 'loosed' from the shed onto our field are doing archetypal lamby things in the late afternoon sunshine - springing into the air, all four feet off the ground, wagging their little tails - full of the joys of....not being in a shed. (You wait 'til tonight babes when the next band of rain rolls in....)

Things to do on a rainy Sunday...

..........make Gourmet Dog Biscuits


.........bet Onion would like these.

'Flicks in the Sticks'

As any regular reader knows, round here we take our pleasures where and when we can. These opportunities may not be sophisticated affairs but they are the glue that binds a community of disparate souls - who knows - tomorrow may bring only the chance to gaze at a windswept hillside or backside of a sodden sheep.

So whatever, we foregather. Last evening it was on rows of chairs beneath the primitive electric bars that heat Marton's ailing Village Hall. (They're on - you fry. They're off - you freeze.) In front of us The Big Screen - for last night the cinema came to us. The lights dimmed and with only the slightest rustle and munch the audience settled down to watch 'The Queen'.

Last week Los Angeles, today south Shropshire courtesy of 'The pioneering Flicks in the Sticks project (which) uses the latest in digital technology to take films to local venues throughout Shropshire and Herefordshire. By working with local promoters, using existing venues and using low cost technology, Flicks in the Sticks is able to bring BIG screen films, classics and blockbusters, to those who live in rural area and do not normally get the opportunity to see such films. And that's about it. Our promoter, Maureen, booked the film and instead of the 20+ mile drive to the 'local' multi-plex we got to see in in our own surroundings. And there was fizzy pop. And crisps and pop corn too.

And the film was a good choice - not very challenging and with a familiar storyline. The anachronistic House of Windsor and Mr Blair's brave new modernising world collide in those strange days following the death of Diana when the public came over all touchy-feelie and grown men wept in the streets. 'Twas all beautifully observed with both poignancy and wit.

And was Helen Mirren's Oscar deserved? Probably - I'm no expert. But with quiet authority she brought to life that familiar figurehead whom we all assume we know - but in fact know not at all.

Eclipse

We are watching the lunar eclipse - under near perfect conditions. The moon is full - there is not a cloud in the sky; the drama played out amidst a panoply of stars. Only a sliver of silver remains. The moon becomes a small red disc. Sun, earth and moon are aligned. The moon has gone. This is powerful medicine.

We look up into the vast foreverness of the sky, shiver a little as the cold night air settles on our shoulders and come back in to Google prosaic explainations.

Give me the mystery and magic any day.

Lamb scurry

No. Not Curry - Scurry - they're playing down where the land dips into the gateway - watch them gather, dart, rush and turn - little plastic coats rattlin' as they run . Every year that same routine - is it in the genes? Then a moment to catch breath and then do it all over again. And again. And again. Bless.

We really should get out more....

St David's Day. And?

It was well into the day before I realised that it March 1st. St David's Day.

Here at the end of Long Mountain the tranquility remained unstirred; no outpouring of national pride discernable in or around in our 6 Welsh acres (or beyond as far as I could see). No public holiday. No male voice choirs. No lava bread, no cawl, no leek broth. No national dress or bardic speke. Did Dewi Sant pass unnoticed here? Possibly. Welsh nationalism seems only to take the form of bi-lingual road signs and government propaganda. Otherwise it's English with a smattering of Polish. The rugby mght be the exception.

But today the ever vigilant Radio 4 with its eye on The Regions, brought us a programme from St David's far down in the south west of the Principality. Here is the Healing Well that sprung from the place where Non, mother of Dewi Sant gave birth. The place behind the legend of this patron saint who brought Christianity to the Celts - whether they wanted it or not. It was one of those good programmes to listen to in the car.

I wondered which national plant would be preferable in the buttonhole: Daffodil? Leek? Leek? Daffodil? Did I waste moments even considering the options? Of course. With an eye to design, style and originality my vote for buttonhole of the day went to The Leek. But then I got to thinking of the leeks in our garden (still there and waiting to be eaten) and wondered how on earth would I fix something the size of a small log to my lapel? And the smell.... And the daffodil - wasn't that something of a Lloyd George-ish innovation? And then which variety? 'King Alfred', 'Thalia', 'Tete a tete' or 'Tenby Daffodil'?

....Which complicated thought brought me to the top of our lane; a short drive which now requires some concentration - the ruts and pot holes are becoming deeper by the day. Dangerously so - small sexy cars and little children could get lost in them - and what with Powys County Council's mega Highways deficit (££Millions since you ask) our small works will be right at the bottom of the maintenance list. Dream on. Print fewer sheets of paper in 2 languages, save trees, save money. Invest in tarmacadam is what I say. (Are there are more Welsh votes in good road surfaces than ancient tongues I ask myself?)

So home at last. And look, the daffodils are out by the door. That's celebratory enough isn't it?